54 competence students. Accordingly, the aspect of collaborative learning as a part of
differentiated instruction is highlighted in the effort of achieving the second objective of this research. That is, to see the effectiveness of the action in
promoti ng students’ collaboration skill and further, learning autonomy, which was
in line with Xu- Sheng’s 2010 notion that collaborative learning has positive
effects on students’ readiness and the ability of being autonomous. Embarking from the elaboration above, it is argued that the strategies in
differentiated instruction Tomlinson, 1999, 2014 incorporated with collaborative learning Chang, 2012 Lin, 2015 can solve the problems existing in the mixed-
competence speaking class. Besides, those approaches are effective in making everyone learn according to their varied capacity throughout the learning process,
and therefore achieve their maximum learning outcome at the end of the course. Other than that, differentiated instruction and collaborative learning could
improve students’ collaboration skill and learning autonomy, which are beneficial for their long-term individual learning process in the future.
55
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses the methodology employed in this research undertaking. Action research as the core method to conduct the study is
elaborated, together with the discussion of mixed-method approach. Subsequently, the research design developed based on the action research is
described to give insights on the practical conduct of this research as well as to ensure the validity of the empirical evidence. Following are the data acquisition
and analysis technique.
A. RESEARCH METHOD
The research method employed in this study was determined by the research objectives. The first objective is to find out whether differentiated
instruction is incorporated in the action taken to solve the mixed-competence classroom problems, meanwhile the second one is to see how effective the action
is in improving learning process and developing learners’ speaking skills. As
action research enables people to find effective solutions to problems and solutions in a local context Stringer, 2007, it offered a good basis for
undertaking this research. In the purpose of achieving research goals, participatory action research was employed.
In general, action research is a systematic inquiry consisting of reflective and problem-solving attempts performed by teachers or other stakeholders in an
educational setting to gather information about and subsequently improve the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
56 operations related to the teaching and learning process Mills, 2011; Creswell,
2012. The main purpose of action research is to facilitate a practitioner to improve the quality of students’ learning and their own professional performance
Creswell, 2012. In the participatory action research, the process must be participatory, emancipatory, and empowering Kemmis, et al., 2014, p.9.
Therefore, the stages in action research were performed together with teacher collaborators and participants being involved in the research environment in order
to solve the communally identified problems. This is because the key of carrying out action research for a researcher is engaging people acting as the participants to
voluntary take parts for improving the quality of their lives, particularly in their English language study.
In educational context , there are four broad areas of teachers’ interests that
become the focus of action research as presented by Fischer 2001 as cited in Burns 2010, p. 24:
a Your teaching and making changes in teaching; b your learners and how they learn; c your interaction with the current
curriculum and with curriculum innovation; d your teaching beliefs and philosophies and their connections with daily practice.
In this study, the main interests to investigate were the first and second points.
The conduct of action research was initiated by major authors in its field, Kemmis and McTaggart 1988, and its cyclical procedures have become the basis
of the modification of more recent action research cycles e.g. Stringer, 2007; Mills, 2011; Kemmis, et al., 2014. Overall, the basic principles of action research
are planning, acting, observing, and reflecting Burns, 2010. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
